By interrelating several texts on the editing and juxtaposition of heterogeneous images by the German essayist and media theorist Hans Magnus Enzensberger, this article brings up to date an aesthetic link ... [more ▼]

By interrelating several texts on the editing and juxtaposition of heterogeneous images by the German essayist and media theorist Hans Magnus Enzensberger, this article brings up to date an aesthetic link between various past and contemporary media devices. The identification of this link makes it possible to free theoretical critique of the evolutionary paradigm of failure and progress (technological and political), opening it up to a set of reciprocal and non-linear insights. In this context, the use of Enzensberger texts also goes beyond any form of periodisation. By engaging a dialogue with his “Jeu de construction pour une théorie des medias” / Constituents of a Theory of the Media (1970), several essays gathered in Médiocrité et folie / Mediocrity and Madness (1988), as well as his recent autobiographical interview Erinnerungen an einen Tumult (2014), this text shows how criticism by the German writer, while constantly revitalised by the emergence of “new” objects (tabloid press, mobile video, television, Internet, smartphones), invites us to overcome any technological determinism to simultaneously consider the political potential of the first activist video groups and platforms dominating the Internet today. [less ▲]